THE WORDS OF SUBEDAI
An ongoing monologue about the trials and tribulations of life in general, being an avid reader, figure painter, terrain modeller, part time wargamer -with a rather scary fixation for the Mongols- part time rule writer, aspiring writer and photographer, very amateur artist and being a follower of both West Ham United and Sittingbourne FC...ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!

Thursday, 24 February 2011

At last, a nice day

It's been quite pleasant up here in the usually Wet Midlands so I dashed outside to take a few pics.
Now the thing is, I couldn't tell you what Mark or letter any of these so I will go with the type. Simples! (For me anyway. I've no doubt someone will let me know.)

A Chieftain. Now, on a veteren's forum he said that BAOR stuff was painted with any dark green they could get hold of although factory specimens were a 'bronze green'. Unless noted otherwise these have been painted with, as a base colour, Vallejo German Cam Green 70979, the netting is Flat Green 70968 dry-brushed with Light Green 70942. Black lines were painted on and the whole vehicle given a black wash before dry=brushing with Russian Uniform 70924. The models were given 2 coats of varnish, 1 of gloss and another of matt. The flock and foliage was sprayed with hair spray which unfortunately gave them a bit of a sheen.

One problem is that the green was a bit dark on the tanks and the black lines don't show up very well. (This problem has been rectified by using a lighter green on the Warrior MICV's.)

A Scorpion.

A Stalwart lorry.

This is the command base for the Chieftain regiment. Shows a Chieftain and a command Sultan. Now I know the aerial looks a bit thick but I tried using bristles and after the first 5 snapped I started using brass wire, unfortunately this is the thinnest I have.

Thanks.The netting -it was actually supposed to be local foliage but hey ho- is just some fine sand sprinkled onto a PVA splotch although as a method of comparison the same idea on my WW II Das Reich was made using dried tea leaves from that famous German tea manufacturer, Willi von Tetley. (Hint, if you are going down the tea leaves route then use tea bag leaves coz they are smaller and more in scale). Base sizes are a standard 40 x 25. Those dimensions were chosen purely to protect the tank gun barrels and give enough space either side for a bit of foliage. The 1/2 sized SP Artillery regiment is now finished as are all of the Warriors and the inf stands have all had the bases textured. I'm bu**ered if I'm going to rebase over 100 6mm inf so I've simply glued the existing base onto one of the new larger ones and evened up the texturing. Luckily spotters and command bases are smaller so can fit on a base with a vehicle. (By the way, the SP's are 1/2 sized coz I've only got 3 models instead of 6.)

I went for 40x20mm. Same reason as you in that it gives protection to the barrel. I kind if wish I'd gone 40x25 or even 50x25 given what I've ended up trying to do with bases, but when I did my first trial bases I only had DBM size 40x20s around and once I'd started I couldn't face going back! There is a case for 50x25/30 giving a more more realistic frontage for a platoon but I figure if you want to jam then in a smaller space then you get to live with the consequences when the FFE lands!I may try the netting/foliage thing at some point as well.Keep cracking on!PS Sass look good too!

Subedai (aka Mick Sayce)

Apparently I'm a grumpy old man who spends too much time on the computer, reading, watching football -especially West Ham United- and painting 'toy' soldiers.(Pearls of Wisdom from the other half).
P.S. Photo of moi was taken by the OH at El Jem, an incredibly atmospheric, ruined Roman amphitheatre in Tunisia.